Chapter III

From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums with booming savagery.

"--coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out--"

Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the _Chickadee_, gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He lay on the parched, rocky soil of a--a something. A planetoid, perhaps. And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the planets that circle the Sun....

Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength, born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.

"My--my companions?" he demanded weakly.

The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw, raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk, loosed a satisfied grunt.

"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"

Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip--but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly.

"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"

The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth.

"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he? 'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!"

"Talk?"

"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."

Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "--if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of--" He said slowly, "Then you _are_ the Lorelei's men?"

"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron--where did it come from?"

And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man _did_ hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.

"And if I won't tell--?" he countered shrewdly.

"Why, then, sailor--" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes--"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"

* * * * *

He took a step forward. Chip, still unsteady on his feet, but feeling his strength renew itself with each passing moment, braced for rough encounter. But the moment of contest was not yet. For even as the big man's companions drew back, grinning evilly, to form a ring about the pair, rose a familiar voice from behind Chip.

"_Hold!_ 'Stay now the hand of wrath, yea, shalt thou restrain even thine arm raised in striking lest His vengeance smite thee into dust!'"

A look of swift, incredulous dismay, sweeping across the giant's face, vanished in an expression of unholy glee.

"Salvation!" he exclaimed exultantly. "It's Salvation Smith! So we meet again!"

The circle parted, admitting newcomers. Syd and the old missionary and the pirates who had dragged them from the broken _Chickadee_. Chip thought that never before had he been so glad to lay eyes on his two comrades. Events had followed so swiftly that he had had no time to feel concern for them, but it was a relief to find them alive and unharmed.

Nor had the crash sapped either of his valor. Syd's face was stubbornly determined, and Salvation breathed raging defiance. He glanced once at Chip, as if to assure himself the young spaceman was uninjured, then turned to their captor.

"Aye, Salvation Smith!" he thundered. "And how came you to this new rat's nest, Blacky Jordan?"

Blacky Jordan! The name touched the fringes of Chip Warren's memory, tugged there fretfully. Then came recollection. Of course! Blacky Jordan had been the chief lieutenant of Balder Sorenson ... the only one of Sorenson's space-preying gang to escape when Lt. Russ Bartlett of the Solar Postal Department had smashed the mail-robbers off Eros two years ago!

The filthiest kind of a scoundrel, Blacky Jordan. A treacherous, back-stabbing murderer who found no methods too low to achieve the results he desired. Chip understood, now, why only one small, frightened boy had ever returned to tell of the Lorelei's gang.

But--the Lorelei? Where was she? And in what way had Jordan earned the allegiance of a girl like--

He snapped out of it abruptly. For Jordan's chunky frame had stiffened, his raven-bright eyes narrowed to meager slits, and he was moving forward, hands half-clenched at his sides in an anticipatory hunger. His voice was low and hard.

"Salvation Smith! The psalm-singin' dog who ran me out of Mars Central! I always said some day I'd get even for that! Well, now's the time!"

And suddenly he lunged, hands clawing for the older man's throat. But they never found their mark. For, swiftly as he moved, Chip Warren moved faster still. A step forward, a foot outthrust, an arm upraised, spinning the man....

"_So!_" bellowed Jordan. "So you're still lookin' for trouble, bucko? O.Q. I'll take care o' that mealy-mouthed space-parson later!"

He turned on Chip viciously; the blow he directed at the smaller man's head would have felled an ox. But Chip was no ox. He was like a panther as he gave with the blow, bobbed, weaved in underneath Jordan's flailing arm, and came up with both fists driving like pistons.

A right to the heart, a short, jabbing left into the mid-section, dropping the bigger man's guard--then a crashing right to the jaw! And--

Jordan went down!

* * * * *

But not yet had Chip Warren fully recovered from the effects of his recent shock. His blows had the power to hurt and sting, but they lacked their accustomed effectiveness.

Scarcely had he touched the ground than Blacky Jordan was up again, his beefy face a red mask of rage, his voice a roaring thunder. Like an unleashed behemoth he hurled himself upon his slighter antagonist, bulling Chip back by sheer bulk, smashing down Chip's guard with sledge-hammer blows.

Even so, Chip gave more than he took. Even as he retreated, his fists continued to dance in for stinging slashes at the other man's face, heart, wind. And had the locale of their meeting been a sporting ring, even yet he might have emerged the victor. But there was little sporting spirit in those who watched.

The foot of a pirate gangster slipped between Chip's legs, tripping him. As he stumbled backward, off balance, the tentacular paw of a Martian whipped about his shielding arm. He was completely at the mercy of the charging Jordan. Mercy was a word the black-haired one did not know. With a bellow of triumph, he smashed both fists, left, right, left again, into Chip's unprotected face. The blows throbbed home like burning rivets. A dizzy nausea assailed Chip; he felt the rocky soil springing up to meet him.

And now it was Syd who, angered beyond discretion, would have leaped forward to take up his friend's fight. But he could not. A dozen arms locked him in a vise of flesh; he was held motionless, straining futilely, as Jordan transferred his attentions to Salvation Smith.

This was no battle at all. Given a gun, the old war-horse was a match for any man in the System. But age had taken its toll of his strength; Jordan's first spite-filled punch smashed down his feeble defenses. In no time at all he was on the ground, stunned, bruised, shaken, unable to defend himself even against the lashing kicks of the pirate's boots. And as he drained the dregs of his vengeance, Blacky Jordan laughed.

"I've waited a long time for this, Salvation Smith!" he gloated. "You kicked me out of Mars; now it's my turn--"

With deliberate savagery he raised his thick, lead-soled boot, buried it in the old man's side. And again. And yet again. Salvation moaned and tried to rise, failed. Chip Warren, shaking off the dark clouds that had blinded him, got to his knees uncertainly, managed one lurching step toward the pirate. And then--

"_For shame!_" A voice that must be born of delirium. A voice lilting-clear as crystal, golden as dawn, valiant and proud as a banner flying. "You--you monster! I always knew you were a cur, Blacky Jordan, but I didn't know you'd stoop to _this_--"

And through the circle burst a figure Chip knew ... the figure of a girl with the face of an angel. But an avenging angel now, with her halo of golden hair cascading about her shoulders, her warm, ripe lips tightset with scorn and anger. Like a dancing gleam she raced between Jordan and his victim; her white hand raised once and descending stingingly upon the pirate's cheek ... then, with a little cry of sympathy, she was on her knees beside Salvation Smith.

It was--the girl of the lens! The Lorelei!